Cant contact 789 about PAC and remaining balance

[pyonear]

I am not replying to a post but would llike to know how everyone manages to get hold of 789 for this"helpful advice".  I have spent the last 3 days since receiving first notification text from Virgin of ending mobile payg on 11th January  trying to get hold of them by mobile and expensive landline.  I have waited for a quarter of an hour each time with nothing but banal music to assault my ears.  I have no signal at home so can only go into town, or some area where there might be a signal, to talk to them.  Of course I don't have a computer in the car so cannot sort out account accessibility to find out what to do about a PAC and a refund of my remaining balance.  Something called customer service is really a bit of a misnomer!  Does anyone have a magic number or email address where answers might be found?  Thanks.

[MOD EDIT: Subject title changed for clarity]

[PG144]

Hello pyonear

It has taken me at least 15 minutes, probably closer to 30 minutes, to get through on 789 today and earlier in the week. I am lucky in that I get a signal at home, so I can leave the phone with the sound in speaker mode on one side of the room and get on with something else while I am waiting. It's still frustrating though, so I imagine you must really be hacked off.  

[John_GS]

Hi @PG144

In order to assist you further, please could you respond to my PM with the details requested 🙂

Best

[PG144]

Hi John_GS,

I replied to your PM on Thursday, and then sent further replies / messages on Friday and Saturday.  Did you not receive these messages?

I used the reply button under your private message to reply - should I have done something else? 

I have sent another reply to your private message this morning. Have you received that?

As I had not heard anything from you after my reply to your PM, and with the January 11 date getting closer and closer, I rang 789 again yesterday. The lady I spoke to said she processed a refund to the card on my account - I have checked my card account balance and this is not yet showing, but my virgin account balance is now showing as 0.00. Transactions sometimes take a day or two to show on my card account, so I will check again tomorrow. 

In the same conversation yesterday, the lady said that the PAC code could not be processed after the PAYG service is ended - this was the information I had asked about in this separate Community post.

I then saw a post by your colleague Lee_R in another thread which provided different information (see below).

Please would you confirm that as long as I initiate the transfer process with another provider tomorrow, Monday 10 January, the transfer will be processed / completed by Virgin's system on January 11 or later. 

I can of course request the transfer online today, but no provider I could find can start to process a transfer on a Sunday so effectively the process would be start on 10 January.

What would happen if the other provider has an issue and they tried to start the process on January 11 or January 12? 

Post by Lee_R re 

'Re: Ending of Pay As You Go

13 minutes ago

Hi @keystone, thanks for getting back to us.

If your number port is scheduled for 11th, please don't worry.  That should go across fine.  You have a week to do so from when the service terminates.  You won't be able to use your SIM to make calls etc from the end date, though.  I hope this reassures you.

Regards

Lee_R

[pyonear]

PG144 - Just to thank you for your sympathetic message which was much appreciated!  I have solved the problem by hanging on for 45 minutes and eventually got a human to talk to who was very helpful.  I THINK I now have access to my account, a credit of unused ££s and a PAC number with which I have acquired a Vodafone deal starting on Tuesday when Virgin shut up shop, which suits me, for calls only and is not much more expensive than my £10 top up with Virgin every year!  I did have to drive into town and talk to suppliers in person as I couldn't get any answer on the phone from O2 (who were supposed to be open, and indeed were when I got there - obviously the Virgin ethos has affected their future merger), but they couldn't offer any PAYG deals below £72 pa and they have the same network cover problem - calls in the garden only.

Thank you again and best wishes with your problems.  Pyonear

[PG144]

Hi pyonear

Thanks for your kind words, I'm pleased to hear you managed to get things sorted. O2 don't seem to do a proper pay as you go sim any more - in fact it seems not many mobile operators are doing them these days.

I think my issues are sorted now as well. I have a transfer of my number set up using the PAC code I was given last week, and I have a refund which should be on its way to my card account.

Hope all goes as planned for you, and for me.

Kind regards